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Thursday, April 22, 2010

It would be great if I could remember when I get tired that the first thing to go is my brain. But I never do, because my brain is what I remember with and it's gone by then. I'm really no better than your average two year old having a meltdown about not needing a nap. Though at least I can self-medicate. Something to look forward to, two year olds!

But also, seriously, not that I'm being unserious about self-medicating, I can plan. And use that part of my brain that I call overmind. Overmind is a mechanism that, in a saner moment, you set up as an autopilot to run when you've lost your marbles. There are some things that I should probably get tattooed on my body like in Memento, like Yes, you can do five skate practices per week for a week, but you have never been able to keep up that pace for more than two, three weeks tops without having a horrible emotional collapse. That's sort of wordy, though. But it's like that first shot of Bushmill's is fine and the problem with the second shot is that it makes you think the third shot is a good idea. I may have used this metaphor before, but this was a formative experience for me & by "formative" I mean that I was thirty-nine. In any case, the worst thing in the world is being in the grip of the notion that you have to keep up with five practices per week, minimum, because if you were really hardcore you would double up on Thursday and Saturday practices.

Cats are going to climb up trees, but a cat can think ahead about how to get down the tree. I mean, actual cats don't.

Also I've been reading some things about tapering where you cut back on your training before, say, a big race. Or a bout. Or in general:

So here is my tree escape route and tapering plan. I would like to work at Level 4 most of the time, or four skate practices per week and adjusting the levels of Sunday practice and 100s over the month. Right now, I'm at the bottom of Level 4 and just doing pushups; last night I thought I'd have to drop to Level 3 because I strained my hip flexor at team practice, but it seems okay this afternoon.